


Friends Like These

by Reynier



Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, POV Outsider, Takes a wild swing from comedy to angsty halfway through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier
Summary: Francesca has some strange upstairs neighbours.
Relationships: Gareth/Lynette
Comments: 16
Kudos: 19





	Friends Like These

**Author's Note:**

> hey the discord made me do it im very sorry for this  
> it was all fun and games until i thought seriously about the implications of pov outsider on the standard tropes of arthurian reincarnation

It was her own apartment. It was her own apartment, and Francesca was grateful enough for that. The downstairs neighbours cranked up their obnoxious music too loud, and the walls leaked when it rained, and there was a perennially odd smell from the fridge, but it was hers. 

If she was a little bit lonely, in her apartment that was all hers and only hers, then that was no one’s care but her own. 

The first week she had moved in, she had met the neighbours. Downstairs was a group of vaguely technologically-inclined young men who smelled of beer and threw raves on Wednesday nights. Francesca was informed of their names and then promptly forgot them. They stood in direct contrast to her solitary upstairs neighbour, a trim young man with an expression like a calculator and a sense of fashion no casual person would dare to cross. He stopped her on the stairs as they passed each other and held out his hand. 

“Galahad Clairvaux,” he said, and didn’t smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Francesca Nisticò,” she said. “I just moved in.”

“I know.” His eyes darted down briefly to her cross necklace, which she wore more out of habit and a vague sense of propriety than devotion. “It’s good to see another person of faith around these parts.”

“Um,” she said, and decided she was scared of him. “Yes. Have a nice day, Mr. Clairvaux.”

“Same to you, Ms. Nisticò.”

And he continued down the stairs. All in all, it was a mildly unsettling introduction, and certainly not conducive to socialising with him, but for all his intimidating mannerisms he was an exemplary upstairs neighbour. His apartment was silent except for the occasional sounds of opera-- only German and Russian, and only tragic-- and, once in a while, the background burble of BBC News. She never even heard footsteps, which was odd, and contributed to her semi-joking theory that he was an assassin. 

It was for this reason that the sudden banging from above at 15:00 on a Sunday concerned her. 

After the thuds and pounding continued for several minutes, she shut her book, grabbed her phone, and headed up the stairs. It sounded as though someone was falling down repeatedly while throwing furniture around. She also thought she could hear voices, and this sounded unlikely because Mr. Clairvaux seemed like the kind of man who thought everyone should have to raise their hand to speak. The sounds of violent struggle increased in volume as she approached Apt 503, and she could make out grunts of exertion. Francesca opened her phone and dialed 999 without pressing call. Then she braced herself and knocked on the door. 

For a long while there was no response, but just as she was about to knock again it opened a crack and a strange man poked his head through and smiled at her. He looked as polite as he was tall, which was to say very. 

“Hi,” he said. “Can I help you?”

The thuds continued from inside the apartment. “Uh.” She gestured vaguely. “Is everything alright? Is, um, Galahad here?”

The man’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh! You’re a friend of Galahad’s. He’s not here right now, but everything’s okay. We’re doing Krav Maga practice.”

“In his apartment, without him here?”

“Yeah! Don’t worry about it, I promise we aren’t robbers or something. See, I have a key.” He fished in his pocket and did indeed produce a key, although whether it was to Apt 503 Francesca couldn’t say. “I can give him a call if you like. I know it must sound a little frightening.”

If there was one thing Francesca really, really didn’t want, it was to irritate Galahad Clairvaux. “No, no--” she said, backing away. “That’s fine, really.”

“It’s no problem!” said the man, and opened the door wider. “Do you want to come in? We made sushi. And here, I’ll give Galahad a call right now.” He pulled open his phone and showed her the page for _Gal_ in his contacts. The picture was a photo of a lobster. Then, before Francesca could protest, he pressed call. “Hey, Gal… yeah, everything’s fine. No, nothing’s on fire. No, I promise, he’s not on fire. Yeah. Really, we’re fine. I just wanted to-- hold on, let me put you on speaker-- your neighbour is here cause we were-- um-- you know how sometimes Gawain and Aggravaine don’t stay on the mat?”

The voice of Mr. Clairvaux crackled over the speaker. “Did you scratch my floor?”

“Uh… a bit. Anyway, can you tell your neighbour we’re allowed to be here, just to put her at ease?”

There was a moment of silence, and then Mr. Clairvaux spoke again. “Is that Ms. Nisticò?”

“Yes,” she said. It was too late now. 

“Thank you for checking in,” he said, “but don’t worry about them. Tell me if they’re too loud.”

“Er… alright.”

“Have a great evening. Gareth-- stop them from doing anything dumb, would you?”

The man in the door, who presumably was named Gareth, looked pained. “I’ll try. Alright. Bye.” He shot her a smile. “I’m really sorry about the noise. If you have a moment, you’re welcome to come in, we have way too much sushi. I’m Gareth, by the way.”

“Francesca,” she said, shaking the hand he proffered. “And I appreciate it, but I don’t want to bother you.

“Oh, it’s no bother. We’re having a little party and everything, there’s tons of drinks too.”

She frowned. “A Krav Maga party?”

“Uhh… yeah!”

The lure of finding out what the inside of Mr. Clairvaux’s apartment looked like was too strong to resist, even if it meant braving a group of Krav Maga-obsessed evangelists, or whoever his friends were. “Sure, that would be lovely, if you’re sure I’m welcome.”

“Oh, of course, of course. Here, come on in.” He held the door open for her. 

Mr. Clairvaux’s apartment was exactly what she would have expected in terms of decor: minimalist, black and white, with menacing iconography staring down from the walls. Francesca was beginning to regret her decision to enter when she and Gareth rounded the corner to the living room. 

Whatever she would have expected of Clairvaux’s friends-- even with the knowledge that they were having a Krav Maga competition-- it was not this. There were eight people draped around the room in various states of disarray. On the mat sat a couple of bruised-looking men with identical shocks of brown hair, one of whom was holding two knives and looked very smug. Another brunet stood at the floating bar and appeared to be mixing liqueurs with various soft drinks, and a man who looked like he wouldn't be out of place at a Clash concert was curled in an armchair doing something on his phone. There were three people sitting on the couch, and a fourth, who wore a shirt with the lesbian pride flag on it, lay draped across their laps. 

“Uh,” said Francesca, “hi.”

The group shouted out words, which might have been welcoming but were utterly incomprehensible due to volume and destructive interference. 

“Guys,” said Gareth, grabbing a box of sushi from the floating counter and offering it, “this is Francesca, she’s the downstairs neighbour. She came up to check Gal wasn’t getting robbed and then I got her to stay for sushi.”

There was laughter, and some friendly waves. 

“Don’t worry,” said the punk in the armchair, “if someone tried to rob Galahad they’d spend six months in the emergency ward.”

“You can’t spend _six months_ in an _emergency ward_ ,” said the man mixing drinks. “They’d move you to, like, urgent care or something.”

The punk grinned. “I’m gonna move _you_ to urgent care, Gaheris.”

“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you--”

“First impressions, guys?” said Gareth, pleadingly. 

A girl on the couch snorted. “Yeah. You all sound like psychopaths. You’re not supposed to let that out until the third date.”

“Lynette,” said the man on the mat who appeared to have lost the fight, “I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh,” said Lynette, “come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I’m being repressed!”

Gareth shoved another box of sushi at Francesca, perhaps as an apology. “If anyone kills Lynette, I’ll kill them.”

“This is a dangerous route and we’ve gone down it before,” said the man with two knives. “Hi, Francesca. Did you know we’ve all been legally dead?”

There were groans from the group, as though this was an oft-repeated joke. 

“Better than being illegally dead,” said Francesca, and looking back it was probably this that won her a place in the weirdest group of friends she had ever met. 

  


Things happened, sometimes, that made no sense. That is-- things happened that made no sense most of the time, but Francesca got used to the trivialities. For example, their names. They had the oddest collection of names she had ever heard. Some of them were standard but old-fashioned: Gareth (her favourite person in the whole world), Lynette (an icon by any standards), and Elaine (ray of sunshine) did not strike her as particularly odd. But the rest… Gareth’s brothers were named Gawain (knife man), Aggravaine (a real jerk), Mordred (did not in fact listen to the Clash, but did listen to the Manics), and Gaheris (who was an actual real-life con artist). Francesca was not overly familiar with the name geography of the United Kingdom, but none of these sounded like anything she had heard before. 

The oddities did not end with names. The group made constant reference to events that sounded like something out of a horror novel. One time Isolde, Elaine’s girlfriend, had mentioned being engaged to a murderer. The rest of them had nodded and taken this in stride as though not only was it expected, but it was not even cause for alarm. 

“Sometimes it be like that,” Gaheris had said, nodding wisely. 

Another time Francesca-- soon dubbed Frankie by Gawain-- had jokingly asked them how they had legally died. She had at the time assumed it was some kind of elaborate prank on their part, but if it was, they were disconcertingly committed. 

“Alright, so here’s how it goes,” Gawain had said, gesturing for Mordred to pass him another piece of pizza. “You know Lance?”

She did know Lance. Or rather, she had met Lance. He was a tall, kind-faced man with a sharp suit and perpetually bruised knuckles, and she had gathered he had used to be Gareth’s community mentor. She also knew he carried four knives and a set of brass knuckles on him at all times, and upon learning this she had vowed never to ask what Gareth’s childhood must have been like. “Uh-huh.”

“Right. So….” Gawain paused and shoved half the pizza into his mouth, then continued around the mouthful. “So he killed Aggravaine, and I was like, whatever, right?”

“Fuck you too,” said Aggravaine, but he looked good-humoured about it. 

“Yeah. But then he went a little feral and killed Gaheris and Gareth, and that was too far.”

“That was too far?”

Gawain grinned. “Yeah. I mean, I could have forgiven Gaheris, but Gareth? _Look_ at him. Could you kill that face?”

“I could,” said Lamorak, blandly. Francesca had yet to figure out why he was there, because no one seemed to like him. 

Having finished his pizza, Gawain waved a knife at him. He always had knives somewhere on his person, and the level of casual familiarity he possessed with them frightened Francesca more than she could say. “Then I’d kill you.”

“Been there, done that, bitch,” said Lamorak. 

Francesca held up her hands. “Can you guys finish explaining your mystical deaths?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” said Gawain. “So yeah, me and the bros killed Lamorak. Family bonding time, really.”

“Mhmm.” Francesca hummed skeptically. “And why did you do that?”

“Oh,” said Lamorak, grinning the smuggest grin she had ever seen, “I fucked their mom.”

Violence erupted in a flash. Franceca could not see who actually dove towards whom, but Isolde managed to confiscate Gawain’s knife while Gareth flung himself over Aggravaine and Mordred. It was one of those odd scenes that occurred so frequently among them that Francesca did not know whether or not she should be concerned. 

“Great, great, okay,” she said, regretting having broached the subject. What about the rest of you?”

Elaine sighed. “I kind of, um… I got a really bad cold after Lance told me he wasn’t into me and I just, uh, kind of died.”

“My dad stabbed me!” put in Mordred. 

Dinadan, who had been fiddling with his accordion, looked up. “I was another victim of Gawain being weird,” he said. Francesca looked at Gawain with a raised eyebrow. 

“I got Lance to stab me,” he said, as though it was a defense. “But I wrote him a letter saying I was sorry.”

“I died of old age,” said Lynette smugly. “And so did Isolde. Because we’re badasses.”

“Yeah, bitch,” said Isolde. They high-fived. 

The group, as a whole, turned to look at Francesca expectantly. What they expected she did not know: her own fake death story, perhaps, or any kind of reaction. 

“What the _fuck_?” she said. 

  


Mr. Clairvaux was almost never there. She did not know how on earth he had met the rest of them, nor did she know what he did for a living. The others called him Galahad, or Gal, and talked about him with the same easy jests that they used for everyone. The only significant time she interacted with him was on the Friday after Louise dumped her. Her ice cream had run out, she was too distracted for TV, and there were no sounds of Wagner from upstairs. She decided to see if the gang was in. 

It was Galahad who opened the door, and before she could gracefully retreat he took one look at her face and ordered her, “Come in.” 

She dared not disobey, but there was a strange energy in the apartment that night. Galahad had dimmed the lights, and even from the entrance hall Francesca could smell alcohol. “Is it Frankie?” came the voice of one of the Orkney brothers, so drenched in pain and booze she couldn’t even tell which until she rounded the corner to the living room. 

It was Gawain. He said on the edge of the couch, clutching the armrest like a drowning man to a raft. There was more blood on the floor than Francesca had seen since her nonno had tripped and hit his head on the cellar stairs. Galahad had had the foresight to lay plastic sheeting on the couch and floor, and the red pooled in the nooks and crannies like food dye. Amid the bottles of vodka and first aid supplies, there were enough weapons on the table to last a brief zombie apocalypse, including what looked like a precision handgun. From the middle of it all, Gawain gave her a shaky smile and tried for a thumbs up. 

“Hey, Frankie,” he said. 

She had never been more scared in her life, although whether it was for or of him she didn’t quite know. “What _happened_?”

“He was dumb,” said Galahad brusquely. “And now he’s dumb and drunk, which is worse.”

“Oh, come on,” jeered Gawain, swatting at him from five feet away. “You’re just jealous. You love me.”

“Jealous of what?” Galahad knelt back down by the couch and grabbed something from the first aid kit on the table. “Of your insatiable appetite for undeserved violence? Of the fact that you’re practically more stitches than man by now? Of your need to feel pain once a month on the regular so you remember you’re alive again?”

Gawain wobbled for a second. “That was a little harsh.”

“Oh, forgive me if I’m mildly concerned,” said Galahad. “Anyway. You’re scaring Francesca. She’s had a bad day.”

“Uh… yeah,” said Francesca. “I can leave.”

“Don’t leave!” Gawain commanded. “I have… I have vodka?”

“No, thanks.”

“Cookies?” offered Galahad. 

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

“They’re in the kitchen in a box on the counter. Help yourself.”

She escaped to the kitchen just as Galahad leaned over his patient with whatever it was he had in his hand, and made shushing noises. There was a wine of pain and she tried not to look. The cookies were right where Galahad had said they would be, and she grabbed them before leaning on the counter to catch breath she didn’t know she had lost. 

There was something very wrong with her upstairs friends, that much she had been aware of for some time. It was unclear to her how much of what they said was joking, and how much was metaphor, and how much was in genuine. They were odd and deeply messed up by any standards, but this was something new. 

_That was a gun_ , she thought to herself. _That was an honest-to-God gun. And plastic serial killer sheeting like in the movies._

She grabbed the cookies and returned to the living room, plunking herself in the armchair usually occupied by Mordred. At any rate, this was a good way to forget Louise. “What happened?” she asked. “And why aren’t you at the hospital?”

Gawain grinned. “Got my own doctor,” he said. “Gal’s got all the, all the accret--accreda-- all the papers ‘nd stuff.”

“He’d be arrested,” said Galahad. He switched out the needle he’d been holding for an anaesthetic swab. “Hold still. But yes, as soon as they fixed him up they would charge him.”

Francesca’s stomach churned. “With what?”

“Assault,” said Galahad, at the exactly same time as Gawain looked proud and said “Murder!”

“What?”

Galahad stilled. “Don’t listen to him,” he said lightly. “He’s drunk and in pain. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“I always know what I’m saying.” Gawain swayed. “It was… two murders. Two murders, Gal? Was it two murders?”

“It was no murders,” said Galahad, his voice tight. “It was no murders because you got into a bar fight. That was it. You’ll frighten Francesca if you’re not careful.”

Gawain straightened all of a sudden, and got that look on his face that Francesca associated with self-loathing drunks. “Good. Good for her to be frightened. I kill everyone in the end, don’t I, Gal?”

“Gawain, stop talking.”

“I killed… wow, I killed a lot of people, Sir Galahad! Fancy that!” He laughed deliriously. “You weren’t there on the grail quest. I really let loose!”

Francesca found her voice. “What are you talking about?”

“Just a joke,” Galahad said, but didn’t put much effort into the lie anymore. 

“Would you believe it if I said we were all the reincarnated souls of early medieval knights and ladies who got involved in court intrigue and killed each other in horribly brutal ways?” asked Gawain. 

“What?” Francesca opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “No?”

“Gal, Gal-- show her the thing, Gal. The thing.”

Francesca began to back away. Galahad really had a lot of very sharp metal implements on his table, and there was blood everywhere already. No one would know. 

But instead of lunging for her with a knife, Galahad just sighed and stood. “Would you let me hold your hand for a moment?” he asked. “I know Gawain’s blood is all over it, but he bleeds a lot, it’s a very normal occurrence.”

Horror battled with curiosity and lost. She touched her fingers to his. 

All of a sudden, she saw it. She did not know how she had never seen it before. It had always been there, and always would. It was woven into the air all around her like a cup reflecting particles of light across the room, glowing and shimmering and shining and beautiful and--

She came to. It was morning. She was in a bed she did not know, tucked carefully under the covers, and pale sunlight trickled in through the window. For some reason she had the thought that the sun was nothing in comparison to _that_ , but she did not quite remember what _that_ was. Perhaps the world had always been like this, watery and half-worn, and she simply hadn't noticed. Perhaps it would never seem beautiful again. 

Then she smelled eggs cooking, and decided that was a lot of nonsense. 

In the kitchen, Galahad was making breakfast, and Gawain sat at the table wrapped in a blanket and looking for all the world like he would rather be asleep. His eyes widened when she entered. 

“Hey,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Um… what happened?”

“That was the Grail.”

“The what?”

"The Holy Grail."

“The Holy Grail?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, the _Holy_ Grail?”

“Yeah, that one.”

She thought about this. “Is Galahad Jesus?”

At the stove, Galahad doubled over, coughing. “No,” he managed, “I’m just good friends with him.”

“He’s joking,” said Gawain, “Jesus thinks he’s a stuck-up bitch. But anyway. I’m sorry for what I said last night, I was really out of it--”

Francesca stared at him. “You weren’t joking.”

“No,” he said, “I wasn’t. Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. “But it would explain a lot. I’ve got some vacation days left to use. I think I’ll go away for a little bit. It’s a lot to process.”

Gawain nodded. “Will you come back?”

“You’re our only friend here,” Galahad put in. “Our only normal friend, anyway. And I’ve got fried eggs for you.”

“I’ll take the eggs,” she said, trying for a smile. “And then I’ll go.”

“For good.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess we’ll see.”

GARETH. 23/9/20XX 12:14.

Hey so uh. I know Gawain said you didn’t want to be bothered but i wanted to check. Are you ok?

GARETH. 25/9/20XX. 19:35. 

Okay, I’ll keep my distance. I just wanted to let you know that if you ever need help, you can always call me. Even if you decide you don’t want to be friends with us anymore. 

LYNETTE. 26/9/20XX. 06:58. 

Hey bitch I miss you i hope you know that

ELAINE. 28/9/20XX. 13:04. 

Hey I wanted to check in? I heard you kind of found out about all the stuff and. I know it’s a lot. Also i just wanted to let you know that we’re not all murderers or whatever, I mean i dont condone murder you know, but sometimes you have to stick with the people who you have. Also gawain’s not like a bad guy hes just. A lot. 

AGGRAVAINE. 28/9/20XX. 23:46.

Hey man gawains a shithead im sorry you walked in him being weird

I kinda miss you tho please come back youre my one sane friend

GAHERIS. 14/10/20XX. 03:23. 

Congratulations, Valued Customer! You’ve won a free gift card for £274.82. Text back “YUM” to claim your reward!

GAWAIN. 25/12/20XX. 07:37.

I’m sorry. 

It was New Years, and Gareth opened the door. He didn’t know who he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Francesca, wearing her best party dress and clutching a brightly-wrapped box in front of her. “Hey,” she said, nervously. “I know it’s been a while, but I brought cake.”

Gareth grinned. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are greatly appreciated! <3


End file.
